17 pages • 34 minutes read
Phillis LevinEnd of April
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Levin’s Poetic Style
Levin’s first book, Temples and Fields, won the prestigious Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America in 1988. Since then, she has gained significant acclaim and is known for exploring philosophical and spiritual concerns in poetry. Her work often features everyday imagery and incidents in her poems to reflect on wider meanings. She is, however, not classified as a confessional poet, instead aiming for the universal rather than personal self-revelation. Levin is equally at home with writing in traditional forms or free verse. Her early influences included William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Emily Dickinson.
Levin’s attention to free verse and innovative rhythms recalls E. E. Cummings, while her reflections on objects of nature align her with poets like William Carlos Williams. Her personal note on the National Endowment for the Arts website states that she hopes, “to make something sacred and to do something public […] reaffirming my hope that what I am doing as a poet has meaning and value that radiates, that composing a poem is one of the myriad ways of being a citizen, of making a bridge from innermost to outermost reaches” (“Phillis Levin.” National Endowment for the Arts). She is often mentioned among other significant American female poets like Molly Peacock and Louise Glück.
Biological Context: The Robin and Its Egg
The biological facts regarding the American robin and its eggs provide valuable context for the poem. The adult bird is part of the thrush family and is about nine inches in size, with a distinctive red breast. It is the most common bird in the United States. Most birds of the species migrate south during the winter. They breed shortly after their return in the spring, with the female producing several clutches between April and July, laying three to five eggs per clutch. The females build their cup-shaped nests in dense bushes or trees off of the ground. The bright cyan color of the small eggs, which are only about three centimeters in size, is created from bile pigments called biliverdin (See: Further Reading & Resources). This bright color is thought to be a sign of fertility to the male mate. It is also believed to help block UV rays from the sun and help in incubation.
If an unbroken robin’s egg is found on the ground, most scientists agree, it was either dropped by a predator (e.g., cats, raccoons, predatory birds, and snakes) or removed from the nest by the adults because it was unlikely to hatch. After birth of the hatchlings, adult robins eat or remove the shell remnants from the nest.
Symbolically, robins are often associated with spring and new beginnings or transformation. They are sometimes associated with Easter and thought to be messengers of the Divine or deceased loved ones. This information heightens some of the themes of loss, abandonment, and nature present in “The End of April.”
